Speed

We're very used to writing about cars with names like "Ferrari" and "McLaren" blowing past the 200-mph (322-km/h) mark, but this month, it's the more everyday names of Volkswagen and Honda. Both automakers drove specially prepared land speed record cars to over 200 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

​​Using archival data from ESA's XMM-Newton orbital telescope, a team of astronomers from the University of Michigan has calculated the speed of the vast halo composed of incredibly hot gas that surrounds the Milky Way.

The curtain has fallen on another Goodwood Festival of Speed, leaving just a faint whiff of gasoline in the air around Lord March's estate. Everything from Bugatti's Chiron to the Aston Martin Vulcan made a run up the hill this year, with a healthy serving of classic racing goodness in between.

As a quadriplegic, the only way Sam Schmidt can drive is using Arrow's open-source semi-autonomous car. Having first demonstrated the technology at Indianapolis in 2014, Schmidt has returned with a modified version of Arrow's Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and clocked 152 mph (245 km/h) on the famous oval​

​There was a time when some bikes came with mechanical speedometers. While no one is suggesting bringing those back, Omata is taking a step in that direction – its One speedometer uses modern GPS tech to track the rider's speed, but that information is displayed on a good ol' analog dial.​

The annual World Human Powered Speed Challenge draws cyclists from around the world seeking to push the limits of pedal-powered motion, but it was Canadian Todd Reichart who left the competition in his wake to clock a top speed of 85.71 mph (137.9 km/h).

Koenigsegg set the current Guinness World Record time for a 0-300-0 km/h (0-186-0 mph) run in 2011 with an Agera R and a time of 21.19 seconds. The company's One:1 supercar has now bettered that in a practice run for a new record attempt, by an impressive 3.24 seconds.

A Bentley Continental GT Speed driven by actor Idris Elba has set a new British land speed record. The "Flying Mile" takes the average speed of a vehicle across two rolling-start runs of a mile (1.6 km) each. Elba achieved an average speed of 180.361 mph (290.263 km/h).

It takes a certain kind of person to take on Land Speed Record (LSR) racing. When you’re doing 300 mph, or more, things can go real wrong, real fast. Now imagine doing that on a motorcycle. Now imagine going over 400 mph and you can see just how daunting, if not downright crazy, the task is.

What do you do if your car's speedometer suddenly fails? If you're wearing a Breva Génie 03 wristwatch, you stick it out the window and carry on, as the latest in the Breva line is claimed to be the first watch to include a pop-up mechanical speedometer.

Accelerating to 333 km/h (207 mph) in just 4.8 seconds is one thing. Doing it on a pushbike with no fairings or disc brakes is another entirely. Frenchman Francoise Gissy now has his heart set on 400 km/h on a bike he calls "Spine Crusher."

The Toyota Supra was no slouch in its time, but a newly-built drag racing version of the car has been taken to a new extreme. The Ekanoo Racing Outlaw Supra covered a quarter mile (0.4 km) in 6.05 seconds. The time was a New Import World Record in the Outlaw 6-Cylinder category.